Dangerous Hope
by ToothPasteCanyon
Summary: Mabel died in Weirdmageddon. Dipper thinks he's lost her forever... until a chance meeting with Blendin Blandin in a graveyard.
1. Chapter 1

Dipper was mindlessly playing video games alone in the living room as construction work buzzed and screeched around him. Mindless was indeed an apt word; his entire attention was laser-focused on the screen, his hands mechanically pressing buttons in response to prompts by the game.

He was doing terribly. Not that it was very surprising, considering he wasn't good at it even in normal circumstances. Nor was he having fun, not least because it was it was a game best played by two, and the usual player two was dead.

That person was Mabel. Mabel was dead. Mabel was _dead_.

Dipper could hardly believe it. It didn't feel real, more like some awful nightmare he'd wake up crying from. But he never woke up, and every few minutes that fact that Mabel was dead would just smack him right in the heart.

Should he even be playing video games? Are people allowed to do that days after somebody they loved more than anything in the world dies? Aren't you supposed to cry? He hadn't cried at all… Why was he even asking these questions?

"Oh, hey there," Dipper looked up to see Grunkle Stan enter the room, a confused look on his face. That look had been there near-constantly since his mind had been permanently wiped. "What'cha doing… um…"

"Dipper."

Stan snapped his fingers. "That's the one! How'd you get that name anyway?"

"Playing video games."

"Really?" The old man peered at the screen. "Hey, um, that looks like a fun game. You got another controller?"

There was a second controller sitting on the carpet in front of the television. "No."

Stan backed up towards the door he came from. "Well, heh, I guess I'll be helping that Ford guy with all the builders. Have fun!"

That was a stupid thing to say. Dipper continued playing. Time passed.

Soos walked in. He was holding a crumpled box of tissues, blue cardboard. Dipper could infer this meant he had used a lot of them – because it was crumpled, not because it was blue. "Oh, hey, dude."

"Hi, Soos."

"We're working on the roof. Phew, it's hard work." He wiped his forehead, because it was sweaty. "How are you holding up, Dipper?"

"I'm doing fine." Too fine, it seemed to him.

"That's good!" Soos nodded encouragingly. "I'm always here if you need to talk, dude. I can't imagine what you're going through."

Really? Because feeling nothing was pretty easy to imagine. "Thanks."

"You guys were real close. Remember that time Mabel came home and started telling us about some huge speech you made to her about how much you loved her?"

"I remember that it wasn't me."

"Yeah, we searched for ages for that Dipper impersonator, haha." Soos pulled out a tissue and blew his nose; Dipper could hear it. "You need a tissue, dude?"

Dipper lost the game.

"Yes? No? How about one, just in case?"

Dipper jumped off the couch, grabbing the tissue. "I'm going for a walk."

"Really? Sounds good, dude!" Soos waved as he opened the door. "Watch out for falling planks!"

Once he was out of the house, Dipper tiptoed around the various holes and taped-off areas around the shack. He saw Stan and Ford to the side and moved in the other direction.

His stomach rumbled. He didn't remember when he last ate. He kept walking, left, right, left, right, hands in his pockets, head down. He saw a twig lying across his path and stepped on it, hearing a satisfactory snap as it split in two.

More time passed as he walked by the road, looking at the occasional passing car as it breezed past him, the occupants carrying on with their normal lives. Dipper wasn't in a car and his life had careened off the road and smashed headfirst into a tree, and he was acutely aware of that.

Sometime later he reached the edge of Gravity Falls, taking a sharp turn into the graveyard. He looked, and there it was: the freshest grave on the lot. Mabel Pines, 1999-2012

There it was. There it was. After everything they'd been through, she just died. No more Mabel, ever again.

"H-hey, Dipper," There was a voice from behind, and he turned. Blendin Blandin. "Who's that- oh, Mabel. Oh my gosh, I-I-I'm so sorry!"

"It's okay." Dipper crossed his arms.

"You know, I-I lost somebody too." Blendin looked down. "Time Baby. If-If-If I could, I'd use my time tape to go back in time and save him, but-but that's strictly forbidden. Al-al-also with the fact he died in Weirdmageddon, you know?"

Dipper stared at the device, his jaw dropping in shock.

"So I guess we-we both have somebody to mourn, huh?" Blendin frowned. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because I'm not gonna have one soon!" Dipper snatched the time travelling device from the man before he could react.

"Hey!" Blendin chased after him. "You-you can't steal that, again! Stop!"

"I'm gonna get my sister back!" Grinning, Dipper pulled the tape measure out to a random distance and let it go. All of a sudden he was standing in an older, decrepit version of the graveyard. He took one look at the mouldy and cracked gravestone of Mabel Pines, one fresh flower laying on the mound, and sighed.

"Wrong way. Let me just-"

That was when somebody grabbed him, slapping a black-gloved hand across his mouth and dragging him into the forest.

* * *

 **Updated 30/9/16**


	2. Chapter 2

The only thing worse than being dragged into the forest by an unknown stranger was being dragged into the forest with a dementedly laughing unknown stranger. The man sounded terribly unhinged, his laughter off-key and grating at all the wrong moments.

This only made Dipper fight harder. He struggled against the stranger's iron grip, shouting into the glove clamped around his mouth. He tried to kick, but he was being dragged along too fast. Finally he opened his mouth and bit the stranger's finger through the gauntlet.

The stranger's laugh abruptly cut off, and Dipper took advantage of that moment to wiggle free. Before he could get away, however, the man grabbed his shoulder.

Dipper turned to get a good look at his attacker; a lean, masked man covered from head to toe in black. One of his legs had a dark metallic sheen to it.

"Get off me! What do you want!?" Dipper recoiled, but the stranger was dragging him closer, and closer, reaching for his other hand. The hand that contained… "You want the time tape?"

The stranger answered by grabbing the device. Dipper doubled down on his own grip, pitting the two in a very unfair game of tug and war. The boy dug his feet into the ground, but it became very apparent the stranger was far stronger than him.

Then, _crack_. An arc of electricity sparked over the time tape, and it shattered. Dipper and the stranger were thrown backwards.

Dipper sat up, breathing hard, staring first at the broken pieces of the time tape and then to the stranger picking himself up. The boy scrambled backwards, picking himself up and running back into the town.

"Hey, wait! Come back!" The stranger shouted, but Dipper kept going. He needed to get back to the Mystery Shack, back to Stan and Ford and Soos-

Dipper was in the future. He skidded to a halt at the end of the graveyard, a cold rush of fear washing over his body. The boy turned around slowly, looking back at the woods.

"Uh… hello?" Dipper picked up a stick and began inching back to the location. "I'm coming back… don't attack me, whoever you are…"

When he reached the location where the time tape had broken, he found the stranger missing, and all the pieces gone. "Oh, no, no no! This is bad… What are we gonna do now, Mabel?"

A pause. The boy took a breath.

"I mean, what am _I_ gonna do now? I gotta find that stranger," Dipper threw the stick away with a tad more force than was necessary, turning on his heel and heading back to the town. "I could start by looking around this dystopian future where random people attack you, I guess."

* * *

The town of Gravity Falls was surprisingly similar to the one in Dipper's present, but with no familiar faces. He looked in Greasy's Diner, where a young woman with a unibrow and buck teeth was serving coffee and pancakes to various patrons. He passed by the fishing lake, where a couple boats out on the water were being supervised by a grey-haired man whose eyes were hidden under a faded baseball cap. The date posted on a cork board was June the 29th, 2042.

It was going to be his birthday soon.

Then Dipper walked past the dumpster, where an old man was screaming about being a Northwest. So far the future didn't look so bad, but that was besides the point. He needed to find the mysterious stranger and fix the time tape so he could save Mabel and go home.

"I guess… there is one more place I could look." Dipper turned and began walking to the edge of the town, in the direction of the Mystery Shack. "I hope Soos is versed in time travel movies."

Would Soos even be there? Would the _Mystery Shack_ even be there? There was only one way to find out.

Eventually Dipper reached the Shack, and to his relief it was still standing. Not just standing, it looked even more packed than it used to be. As he watched a man in a suit, a fez and an unbelievably red superhero cape pushed through the crowd to stand on the porch. Was that…?

"Alright dudes, listen up!" Yes, that was Soos, standing near a large object covered over with red cloth. "Sorry, he can't be here, but –hey, hey, just wait for it – we got this giant cardboard replica of Von! So take your picture with him for ten, no, a hundred dollars! Here it is, dudes!"

Soos whipped off the covering, revealing a rather crudely drawn… creature. It was black, with a thin snakelike body, wings and large claws. A dragon?

Dipper shook himself; he didn't have time to speculate. The boy inched his way around the crowd, hopped onto the podium and tapped Soos' shoulder.

"Who's that- oh, hey Dipper, I thought you left! You look… different." He stroked his chin. "Definitely the pinetree hat."

Dipper clenched his fists. "No, I'm from the past! I really need your help, Soos."

Soos nodded. "Time travel? No worries, dude, I know exactly what to do. Would you say your situation is more like Back to the Future, or the Terminator movies?"

"Is that important?"

"Well, yeah! There's like so many different theories going on with time travel…" Soos noticed the boy's expression. "Should we just go inside and you tell me the whole story?"

"Yeah. That's a good idea."


End file.
